Americanae nace como un proyecto conjunto que surge dentro de la Red Europea de Información y Documentación sobre América Latina (REDIAL), y que ha afrontado la Biblioteca de la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID). Esta nueva biblioteca virtual hace más accesibles los libros digitales de tema americanista a los investigadores y usuarios interesados de cualquier parte del mundo.

This paper presents new identification results for models of first–price, second–price, ascending (English), and descending (Dutch) auctions. We consider a general specification of the latent demand and information structure, nesting both private values and common values models, and allowing correlated types as well as ex ante asymmetry. We address identification of a series of nested models and derive testable restrictions enabling discrimination between models on the basis of observed data. The simplest model—symmetric independent private values—is nonparametrically identified even if only the transaction price from each auction is observed. For richer models, identification and testable restrictions may be obtained when additional information of one or more of the following types is available: (i) the identity of the winning bidder or other bidders; (ii) one or more bids in addition to the transaction price; (iii) exogenous variation in the number of bidders; (iv) bidder–specific covariates. While many private values (PV) models are nonparametrically identified and testable with commonly available data, identification of common values (CV) models requires stringent assumptions. Nonetheless, the PV model can be tested against the CV alternative, even when neither model is identified.

We present new identification resiilts for models of first-price, second-price, ascending (English), and descending (Dutch) auctions.We analyze a general specification of bidders' preferences and the underlying information structure, nesting as special cases the pure private values and pure common values models, and allowing both ex ante symmetric and asymmetric bidders.We address identification of a series of such models and propose strategies for discriminating between them on the basis of observed data.In the simplest case, the symmetric independent pri- vate values model is nonparametrically identified even if only the transaction price from each auction is observed.For more complex models, we provide conditions for identification and testing when additional information of one of the following types is available: (i) one or more bids in addition to the transaction price; (ii) exogenous variation in the number of bidders; (iii) bidder-specific covariates that shift the distribution of valuations; (iv) the ex post reahzation of the value of the object sold.Our results include new tests that distinguish between private and common values models.

Strategic behavior in a finite market can cause inefficiency in the allocation, and market mechanisms differ in how successfully they limit this inefficiency. A method for ranking algorithms in computer science is adapted here to rank market mechanisms according to how quickly inefficiency diminishes as the size of the market increases. It is shown that trade at a single market-clearing price in the k-double auction is worst-case asymptotic optimal among all plausible mechanisms: evaluating mechanisms in their least favorable trading environments for each possible size of the market, the k-double auction is shown to force the worst-case inefficiency to zero at the fastest possible rate.

This paper estimates a structural model of optimal life-cycle consumption expenditures in the presence of realistic labor income uncertainty. We employ synthetic cohort techniques and Consumer Expenditure Survey data to construct average age-profiles of consumption and income over the working lives of typical households across different education and occupation groups. The model fits the profiles quite well. In addition to providing reasonable estimates of the discount rate and risk aversion, we find that consumer behavior changes strikingly over the life cycle. Young consumers behave as buffer-stock agents. Around age 40, the typical household starts accumulating liquid assets for retirement and its behavior mimics more closely that of a certainty equivalent consumer. Our methodology provides a natural decomposition of saving and wealth into its precautionary and life-cycle components.

Stochastic dominance criteria are commonly used to draw welfare-theoretic inferences about comparisons of income distribution as well as ranking probability distributions in the analysis of choice under uncertainty. However, just as some measures of location and dispersion can be catastrophically sensitive to extreme values in the data it is also possible that conclusions drawn from empirical implementations of dominance criteria are unduly influenced by data contamination. We show the conditions under which this may occur for a number of standard dominance tools used in welfare analysis.